


Promise

by Bullfinch



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:18:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11706657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: Fenris's first night with Hawke.





	Promise

**Author's Note:**

> I finally wrote it. Fenris is again trans here. Y'all know how this one goes

The tide that bears him to the manor mostly whispers _selfishness_ in the way it breaks over his back. Hawke ascending over years, and Fenris now—on this cursed day—no longer able to resist his pull. There are a hundred reasons why he shouldn’t be doing this but they’re driftwood, swept away on the current.

Hightown passes him by, the brass cormorants peering down from their perches of powder-white granite, attending his passage. Late now. The sun is gone, the streets sedate. Fenris usually meets the nobles’ glares without qualms but not today. Not with the tide at his back. _I need,_ he thinks, and stops. He can’t need someone. He can’t need Hawke. _Selfish,_ the wave whispers as it washes over him again.

But he still knocks on the door, rapping the wood with his knuckles.

The steward appears, gazing up at him blandly. “Good evening, Master Fenris. I am afraid Master Hawke is out at the moment—“

“I will wait,” Fenris tells him, and slips inside.

The steward hurries after, uncertain. “Er—of course. Is there…anything I can—“

“I require nothing. Thank you.” Fenris knows the house (knows Hawke) and goes to the fireplace where a bright flame burns.

This is good. Maybe while Hawke is absent he’ll find the courage to leave. It isn’t a kindness, what he’s doing. He’s doing it to quiet the inescapable need, the roaring in his ears through which he can sometimes catch snatches of Hadriana’s voice telling him what a nasty, worthless creature he is and other times the things Hawke’s told him like “I’m glad you’re all right” and “I missed you” and “You didn’t deserve that.”

 _Selfish._ Hawke would tell him it’s not. But Hawke doesn’t know.

Fenris tries to leave, many times. Each time his feet remain stuck to the floor, toes curling on the fire-warmed stone. His arms remain folded, jammed against his chest. The fire crackles but drowns nothing out.

“Fenris?”

Too late.

Hawke is there, the firelight illuminating just the edges of him as if he’s a ghost, a warning, and Fenris can still avert disaster but only if he heeds it. Except his feet are stuck in place. _Selfish._

“I was looking for you,” Hawke says. “Are you all right?”

“I shouldn’t be here,” Fenris tells him.

Hawke pauses. “Then why did you come?”

Why indeed. Fenris finds a laugh struggling out of his chest and swallows it, gazing into the fire. “I have been thinking of you.” But the flames rebuff him, and he turns at last. “In fact, I’ve been able to think of little else.”

He _sees_ Hawke’s chest expand, the catching of breath, the lips parting in surprise. “I looked for you today,” Hawke says. “I was worried. I didn’t know what had happened to you.”

“I fled. Of course I fled. Did you not expect it?” Fenris waves a hand, dismissive. “I gave my word to leave Hadriana alive and then I murdered her anyway. What must you have thought of me? Shown my true colors, I expect—“

"You didn't want to," Hawke says.

Fenris's head snaps up. How did he—

"I saw it. You were angry, but not at her. I honestly can't imagine why." Hawke shakes his head a little. _"I_ would have killed her."

"But for a different reason," Fenris murmurs. "You would have done it to protect me. Or to save her other slaves from what she visits upon us. Hm." He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Upon them. I did it because I hated her and I've killed far too many people for much, much less. Because my master gave an order. That's what I do, isn't it? That's what I'm good for?"

"Fenris." Hawke's voice has been calm to this point but it isn't anymore. No. Fenris doesn't want to hear it like that. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry she came back into your life at all. But you _do_ protect people. That's why you accompany me on all my terribly inadvisable ventures, isn't it? Not for the money. You never spend any of it."

"I do it—“ Fenris covers his face, caught between two answers he hates. "I do it because you ask me to come.” _And you are_ good, _you are good, Hawke—_

"You do it because you want to help people." Closer now, although Fenris will not look at him. The hint of a smile in his voice. "Spending time with me is just a happy coincidence."

"You are too kind to me," Fenris mutters.

"You aren't kind enough to yourself."

"I killed a woman." Fenris lowers his hands but stares at the floor. "After I promised not to. I didn't _want_ to and I still did. I can’t—that's all there is to me. I can't _change_ this."

“Do you really—“ Hawke breaks off, and he reaches out but Fenris steps away. His hand drops. “If you could see how much you’ve changed since I met you. I wish I could show you.”

Fenris shakes his head, hugging himself. “How can I—“ His eyes are starting to prick, which is humiliating. “How can I know?”

“Well…” Hawke shrugs a little. “Do you trust me?”

 _I need,_ Fenris thinks, and stops. He can’t need someone. He can’t—

With his throat tight he turns and embraces Hawke, leaning into his chest.

Powerful arms wrap around Fenris’s back, holding him close. “You’re amazing,” Hawke murmurs. “You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

Hawke’s body is warm, his heart thudding slow and steady under Fenris’s cheek. But the closeness just reminds him of what’s still missing and it’s only because _he_ was always too afraid, because he turned aside or shrank away when instead he should have—

Fenris grabs Hawke’s face, stands on tiptoes, and kisses him.

Hawke cups his cheek and kisses him back without a second’s hesitation, hardly even surprise, but only—Fenris dares to hope—the same kind of need that brought him here tonight. And then Hawke breaks off, just barely, their lips still brushing—

—to whisper, “I love you, Fenris, I love you so much,” and then kiss him again.

It’s been so long since he’s done this. It’s different when he _wants_ to do it, and he might be overeager because Hawke stumbles back a little and Fenris is about to slow down but Hawke’s tongue finds his own and besides Fenris sort of likes how he, less than ten stone, can move Hawke, a mountain in comparison, so his bare feet push against the carpet until Hawke hits the wall with a _thump._

The fire crackles behind them, the heat still warming Fenris’s back. He doesn’t have the courage to look up so instead he runs his fingers over the front of Hawke’s shirt and takes a shaking breath. Hawke’s hands rest at his waist, waiting.

Fenris wants this. He _wants_ it, but the words stick in his throat and all he can do is slip his fingers between the buttons in Hawke’s shirt.

A calloused thumb strokes his cheek, and Hawke undoes the first button and then the second, and Fenris slides his hand beneath the thin cloth to press it to Hawke's chest. "You have—“ Then he breaks off, embarrassed.

"I have what?" Hawke asks.

Fenris bites his lip to hide a smile. "So much hair."

A laugh bursts out of Hawke. "It's not like you haven't seen it before."

"Yes, but I..." _I feel it,_ he thinks. Fine and soft under his palm.

Slowly Hawke undoes a third button, then a fourth.

It’s uncertainty or terror or both but Fenris freezes, his fingertips just curving into the dip beneath Hawke’s collarbone. What if he shouldn’t be doing this? He _wants_ to, of course—wants to belong to Hawke, or _with_ Hawke, or something. He just wants to belong. Still something stops him in his tracks. Hawke’s chest rises and falls gently under his palm.

“Fenris.” Hawke cupping his face, kissing him again. “I love you more than I can say and I have for years. And in case you’re not sure, I want this.”

Fenris nods, embarrassed again. “I—yes. I apologize. It’s only I…haven't done this before. Not—like this."

Hawke strokes his cheek. "We don’t _have_ to do anything, you know.”

“No, I _want_ to, I just—“ And then the words dry up, the small, dark shame embedded beneath his breastbone. _I'm afraid of what you'll think when you see me._

They’re quiet for a moment, and then Hawke asks softly, “Do you want to go upstairs?"

Fenris nods.

Hawke leads him by the hand out of the sitting room and up the staircase, through the quiet, the flicker of candles, the empty rooms insulating them from the world outside. Fenris doesn't know where the dwarf steward has gone. It's only them, the stone tile beneath his bare feet, Hawke's warm hand engulfing his own.

The door opens. Then carpet. Hawke's room, large but sparsely decorated, Fenris always with the sense that Hawke was a bit ashamed of the plush mattress and the deep red velvet hanging from the four-poster frame. None of that now. The door glides closed behind him and Hawke is there, close, so close, the shirt still unbuttoned with one corner of the collar downturned like a dog's ear.

He has to do it.

It almost seems Hawke doesn't want him to—is too busy kissing him, cupping his face, his arm, his waist. Fenris returns the kiss, a little confused. Is this how things are supposed to go? He had thought there was a purpose to retiring here. Instead Hawke favors—this.

His beard isn't scratchy but soft, rather, and when they break apart Fenris reaches up to run his fingertips over it. There's a bruise hiding there, barely visible in the candlelight, because they both lead dangerous lives even though Hawke doesn't have to. And for some reason it takes until that moment for Fenris to notice the look on Hawke's face, a near-anguish distinctive of a hundred things unsaid, and Fenris asks, "What is it?" with his voice beginning to waver.

Hawke starts to speak and stops, swallowing; then he tries again. "I've wanted to tell you I loved you for such a long time. I—you don't know how it makes me feel. That you came here tonight."

Yes. Because Hawke's entire family is dead and while Fenris's only real loss has been the child he was once, he expects that Hawke has been laboring under a terrible aloneness which he has refused to show anyone, preferring (as always) to be crushed under his burdens before sharing them. But he isn't alone.

"Hawke, I love you," Fenris says, and kisses him again.

More purposeful this time, and Fenris finds that he is the one who undoes the rest of the buttons and pushes Hawke's shirt off his shoulders. It collapses to the ground in a pile and of course Fenris has seen Hawke naked before but not so close to him, not while his hands are curled around the thick muscle of Hawke's arms, fingers skimming through the fine, dark hair that covers his chest and stomach.

And still Hawke hasn't touched the clasps at the front of Fenris's shirt. Not— _not,_ Fenris tells himself—because he doesn't want to see it. It's because he's careful as always and is simply waiting.

But there's no use in putting it off any longer, and if Hawke is going to reject him then it's better to get it over with now so Fenris breaks away and takes a slow step back.

Hawke stands there, quiet, his eyes dark above the bruise creeping up his cheek. The candles leave half his face in shadow. Fenris is caught by love, a sudden wash of love that makes his fingers stop where they are, halfway through the first clasp, makes him want to come forward and kiss Hawke again. But he has to do this.

The first clasp isn't so hard. Nor the second. Fenris knows his hands are shaking. Only his breastbone is exposed, the lyrium lines decorating his chest like an aegis. The third clasp is fine and so is the fourth. Then the fifth. His shirt hangs nearly open. Can Hawke see? The strange folds in his skin, the aberrant shadows? The sixth undone. His hands are shaking more now but the final clasp parts. He shivers although the air is not cold.

Then shrugs the shirt from his shoulders.

He stands with hands balled at his sides, his small breasts exposed. His skin prickles with gooseflesh. He's afraid to look up but does it anyway because he has to know, must leave if all is not well.

_Love._

Hawke’s face brims with it, a smile breaking open on his face. “Fenris, you’re—you’re amazing.”

No wincing, no tinge of disappointment. Just love. Hawke covers his mouth, still waiting, his eyes shining.

No waiting anymore. Fenris closes the gap, holds his face, and kisses him again, hard.

Then Hawke’s arm slips around his back and their bodies press together and Hawke is _hot,_ Fenris scorched where they touch. He wants more of it. Drags his fingers through Hawke’s hair and balls them in a fist until he feels his own name hissed against his lips.

Again he advances, and again he moves Hawke so _easily,_ his mountainous form nothing now, malleable to Fenris’s want. Hawke hits the bed and sits and Fenris settles on top of him like cloth folding gently to the floor. Like he was meant to be here, just like this. Hawke’s hands run up his ribs—so much larger than his own, fitting under his shoulderblades.

“Can I touch you?” Hawke asks.

Fenris hesitates, then grabs a hand and presses it to his chest.

Hawke kisses him and they rock gently, swayed by the push-and-pull. The way Hawke cups and squeezes his chest makes Fenris gasp. So long since he’s been touched like this. And never like _this._ His head is taken over with how much he wants. All of it, all at once. His fingers find Hawke’s waistband and tug—but he holds, waits, because it’s both of them here and they’ve never done this before and Fenris, in the back of his mind, still has thoughts of bolting so what’s to say Hawke doesn’t feel the same?

But Hawke whispers, “Yes, yes,” before his lips meet Fenris’s again.

Somehow Fenris does it without even looking, tugging the knot free and loosening the leather strings, Hawke’s stomach rolling slowly against his knuckles.

Fenris slips inside Hawke’s smallclothes and grasps him.

Firm and _hot_ but then Hawke gasps and his whole body tenses, curling in, his forehead pressed to Fenris’s shoulder. Fenris holds him there, an arm wrapped around his back while Fenris squeezes him gently. Hawke hisses out the Maker’s name and reaches down to free himself.

Strange—almost outside belief that Hawke is like this, bent to Fenris’s shoulder, his great body tensing at the lightest touch. Yet here they are. Fenris strokes him and feels the muscles in Hawke’s back shifting, tightening and relaxing, the most minute movements spelled out beneath his palm. Then Hawke braces himself on the bed and his hips roll up—taking Fenris with them like he weighs nothing at all.

An exchange of power. Hawke at the mercy of Fenris’s grasp yet moving him almost as an afterthought. Fenris wants that. Wants Hawke to touch and move him, wants also to see him breathless and beholden. To incite it he strokes faster and Hawke swears, but then his lips close around Fenris’s nipple and Fenris makes a sound he hasn’t made in years, not even alone in the mansion, small and quiet but plain as day.

_Need._

Hawke hears it—must hear it, his tongue laving Fenris's nipple and Fenris balls a hand in his hair, holding him where he is. It feels _good._ So strange it nearly gives him pause (but doesn't, Hawke still firm and heavy sliding through his grip). Contentment and even happiness he has started to grow accustomed to, more _good_ feelings that were not available to him before Kirkwall. But this is—different, it's concrete, it's his _body_ that feels this way. Because of what Hawke is doing to him. The sheer vulnerability of it makes him dizzy for a moment. It's Hawke who's making him feel this way.

That should frighten him, he thinks. He has only ever been safe because he protected himself. Should he not be doing that now? But it isn't the same now. Is it?

"Hawke, I love you," he tries.

Hawke sits back and gazes up at him. _Love,_ Fenris sees it again, clear as nothing ever is with Hawke.

"I love you," Hawke says.

It doesn't change anything. Doesn't cover over the vulnerability. It only makes Fenris want to feel that more, to crack himself open and let Hawke at the deep inside of him where he could be lain low with barely a breath. But he wants Hawke there anyway.

"Fenris." Hawke rests a calloused palm on his cheek. "Can I touch you?"

That will mean taking his trousers off. But Hawke hasn't balked and Fenris stands and yanks his trousers and smallclothes down and steps out of them.

Hawke has finished undressing as well and he takes Fenris’s arms and kisses him again. But the closeness of it, even then, isn’t enough, and Fenris leans in and presses his body to Hawke’s, chest to chest, stomach to stomach. A hand on his waist, trailing lower, thumb tracing the joint of his hip. Hawke wants to touch him. Fenris breaks off and nods, breathless, waiting—

Two fingers rub him gently.

For the first second it doesn’t feel like much but then the sensation blooms like a sunflower and Fenris buckles, burying his face in Hawke’s shoulder. It feels like nothing he’s felt before. He’s making that sound again. _Need._

“Fenris.” Hawke holding him up now with his legs gone boneless. “I love you. I love you so much.”

“H-Hawke—“ Can’t form the words, rising up on tiptoe so Hawke’s fingers will split his folds, will feel how slick he is.

Hawke murmurs a curse, then kisses Fenris’s hair. “Do you want to lie down?”

Fenris splays on the bed, dragging himself up so Hawke can crawl forward and kiss his stomach, his thighs. Almost teasing with how Fenris is burning up with _need,_ and his hips rise off the bed although he hadn’t meant to do that.

Hawke’s mouth on him.

Fenris gasps through his hand, his toes curling in the covers. The warmth—the heat, gathering at the juncture of his thighs and _The sun_ it’s Hawke there, Hawke’s lips and tongue opening him up and Fenris is letting him.

He’s losing control of himself now. With each little shock of pleasure a twitch runs down his leg, or his body curls up untilhe can make it relax again.Again the feeling of vulnerability rushes over him and _The sun_ he reaches down, hoping, needing, until Hawke’s hand meets his own, their fingers interlacing. Now at least when his body curls up or his legs twitch, he can squeeze Hawke’s hand _The sun slants_ and feel an answering squeeze.

Then Hawke’s tongue presses into him and Fenris archesand cries out, breaking up the quiet _The sun slants orange_ flickering of candles _._ Hawke’s gaze pierces over the plane of his body to meet his own, and Fenris can hardly hold it for how much _through the fruit-laden_ he squirms. Not to get away. He needs to feel it. Needs Hawke to expose him and take him apart. He shouldn’t want that and yet it’s all he wants.

Perhaps not all. “Hawke,” he says, straining to make his voice heard _through the fruit-laden trees_ over the fear—the not-fear, the towering cliff-top of risk where he toes the edge—“Hawke, your—your fingers—“

The lightest touch at his entrance before Hawke breaches him.

Fenris moans, his head rolling _leaves waving_ to one side on the pillow. His eyes are closed at the cliff-top now; it feels too good, too new. Hawke is gentle _throwing their long shadows_ still, and their hands remain linked, flattened on Fenris’s stomach. Fenris finds his hips _down the beach_ lifting off the bed again and he lets them—a natural motion, the quick, short thrusts, his body acting on his want even when his mind _his sand-covered skin_ and it serves to stroke that one spot—Hawke’s fingers—that makes his legs lose strength, his heels sliding out _skin glittering_ over the covers.

Fenris struggles to push himself up on one elbow _a bubbling laugh_ and his gaze meets Hawke’s—whose lips are still locked to him but Hawke’s eyes are dark and steady and meet Fenris’s through the dim flicker of light _his sister standing in the surf_ unimpeded. It’s almost too much but Hawke holds him there and _surf splashing_ it takes all the strength Fenris has to meet him.

Then Hawke rises a little, and he kisses _splashing over her ankles_ Fenris’s thigh, fingers still inside him. “Fenris, I love you.”

“I love you, Hawke,” Fenris says, and _her hair stringy and wet_ the next words come out of him without thought. “Can you—I want you—in me—“

Hawke comes up the bed _sweat salty_ and kisses him on the mouth, deep and slow, and Fenris reaches down—Hawke breaking off _on his upper lip_ to take in a sharp breath at the first touch—and tilts his hips up—

When Hawke slides in he buries his face in Fenris’s neck, murmuring out _as he runs across_ a sweet oath. Fenris hardly hears it, his lips parted, fingers _across the beach_ digging into Hawke’s firm back. This must be too much _sand spraying_ must be and yet he feels as though _spraying behind him_ it is an arrival, a break of sunlight through the trees. And Hawke with him.

Then Hawke _seaweed wrapped_ starts to move and Fenris moans low and shuddered, his body _around his legs_ twisting. Hawke is kissing his neck and Fenris tips his head to the side, savoring the soft scrape of Hawke’s tongue _when he trips_ on his skin. More. He needs to feel it more. His ankles cross at the small _his hands scrape_ of Hawke’s back and Fenris whispers his name, running fingers through his hair. Hawke’s hand finds his chest again _on the sand_ and Fenris _his knees cut_ bites back a whine at the broad, hard palm, the rough skin cupping him. He wants this. He wants _palms scraped bloody_ “Hawke,” he whispers again, “Please, I need you, please—“

“Fenris, you—you feel amazing.” Hawke’s voice _a call from the trees_ is rough and low and it makes Fenris’s legs shiver, until he starts _coming down the bank_ faster and then Fenris cries out, again, can’t stop himself as each impact _with her basket_ of Hawke’s hips _stacked with fruit_ on his own threatens to shake him apart. He is pierced _his sister runs_ his core and realizes that while he had been _red hair flying_ afraid (almost) of this now he needn’t have been, Hawke’s great body _and he follows_ close to his, the heat _racing to the trees_ between them, Hawke’s mouth _sand spraying_ his neck, his jaw, _up his calves_ chest. Fenris whispers his name, whispers _she calls again_ love you,” for what feels like _palm leaves waving a_ thousand times until the raw, sun-hot pleasure _sea-smell gusting_ inside of him, stoked by _a breeze off the water_ again and again and again, starts to burn away any words _sister taunts him_ think to say. He approaches the cliff-edge _holds out his hand_ hears Hawke hiss _mother takes one from the basket_ “I’m close, Fenris, I’m close,” and _holds it out_ Fenris nods and tries to pull Hawke closer _drops it in his hand_ though it isn’t possible, and the burning _skin red-orange_ inside him is ready to burst and _speckled with yellow_ Hawke’s breath _and white_ hits harsh _bruise under his thumb_ the thin skin of his neck _lifts it to his mouth_ Fenris’s back arches and he lets out a broken moan as he

_He bites. The skin snaps under his teeth and the flesh explodes into his mouth, sharp and sweet as starlight._

——

Fenris stares at the wall for a long time.

The question creeps into his mind almost as soon as Hawke falls asleep and refuses to leave him alone. _What have I done?_ Coming here and sleeping with Hawke. Making a promise he could never keep. Stupid to think that he could. That he could even try.

He has to leave. That is clearer than anything else has been this whole night. He cannot stay, he must leave. He must. And when he decides that becomes easier to lie there with Hawke sleeping at his back, an arm draped loosely over his stomach. It isn’t cruel to do this, right now. Hawke is asleep, he doesn’t care. But—

 _Selfish,_ he thinks. Yes. Still, he waits. Through the window the moon rises, a slim curve in the sky, crawling up above the crossbar, the top corner finally starting to disappear behind the wall…

Fenris, carefully, climbs out of bed.

He dresses, mostly, stumbles and nearly loses his balance while putting on his trousers and when he grabs the bed poster for support he spots Hawke moving.

Fenris finishes dressing and by then Hawke has discovered the empty spot in the bed next to him and propped himself up on one elbow. “Something wrong?”

Fenris doesn’t want to do this. But he owes it. “I have to go.”

The sight of Hawke’s face breaking in half is a knife in Fenris’s breastbone. “But—why?” Hawke asks.

“I’m sorry. I can’t—I shouldn’t have done this,” Fenris says.

“Fenris, you—please. You don’t have to go. Please—”

“I remembered,” Fenris blurts out, and blinks. He hadn’t meant to reveal that but there it is.

Hawke pauses. “Remembered what?”

That’s the question. “Who I was. When I was young. All of it, all of it was there and now—“ _Gone_. He knew as soon as it was over. “All gone,” he murmurs.

A moment of silence but Fenris can see Hawke’s mind going, thinking of how to convince Fenris to stay. It’s not going to work. “I’m sorry,” Hawke says.

“Yes,” Fenris says dully. “I have to go. I—I’m sorry, Hawke.” He grasps the doorknob—

“Fenris—“

He stops and turns.

Hawke is standing there, still naked, his body wrapped in flickering shadow. “Listen, I’m not going to stop your or—or make you explain yourself but I just—“ He exhales, his shoulders falling minutely. “I just need you to know I love you. Whatever happens.”

 _I love you._ Fenris opens his mouth to speak.

“Goodbye, Hawke,” he says, and leaves the bedroom behind.

The house is silent and cool. No breathing but his own, no warmth of skin on skin. He makes it halfway down the stairs before his eyes start to prick, his nose burning. He presses a hand to his mouth and whispers, “I love you, Hawke.”

Only the dark hears him.


End file.
